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Polish Housewife

Polish recipes served up with tidbits of folklore, customs, and history

Vegetables

Zapiekanka Polish French Bread Pizza

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If you spend much time at all in Polish cities, you’ll see folks walking around eating long skinny Zapiekanka Polish French Bread Pizza. They always look and smell terrific. Almost two years after my first visit to Poznan, curiosity got the better of me. As I was leaving Sweet Surrender one afternoon, rather than hop on my tram at Most Teatralny, I walked over to another corner of this busy intersection to order my first Zapiekanka.

Zapiekanka Polish French Bread Pizza

Zapiekanka dates back to the 1970s, and the small amount of free enterprise allowed by the Communist government, mała gastronomia, travel trailers or food trucks serving simple street food. Zapiekanka’s base is a baguette, cut in half lengthwise. Traditionally, it’s topped with mushrooms, melted cheese and on the very top, a squirt of ketchup. 

With food scarcity a thing of the past, Zapiekanka now comes with mind boggling topping choices. I think my first was kebab meat. The ones we made at home recently, had a slice of ham, sauteed mushrooms, cheese, and were topped with ketchup and everyone’s favorite garlic sauce, sos czosnkowy.

I made my own garlic sauce which is so versatile. You’ll find so many ways to use it! Ed pronounced it very Polish tasting and the perfect finishing touch. My prescribed recipe below is very basic, add to it as you choose just be sure to keep the melted cheese and sauces on top. For protein, you might try BBQed meat, cooked bacon, or salami. As you saute the sliced mushrooms, maybe you’d like to toss in some sliced onion or bell pepper.

As for the cheese, make it something that will melt well, cheddar, mozzarella, even Oscypek if you’re lucky enough to have some. To be authentic, add a squirt of ketchup on top of your Zapiekanka as it comes out of the oven, and any other sauce you like, garlic sauce, ranch, or 1000 island dressing. The amounts listed below are really just guidelines, like sandwich, soup, or pizza making, the rules aren’t so strict.

I look forward to hearing what toppings you’ve put together. We thought our homemade Zapiekanka were delicious!

Smacznego!

Lois

PS – this explains why Poles are likely to put ketchup on pizza, even though it already has a red sauce!

Zapiekanka Polish French Bread Pizza

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Zapiekanka Polish French Bread Pizza

★★★★★ 5 from 1 reviews
  • Author: Polish Housewife
  • Prep Time: 10 mins
  • Cook Time: 20 mins
  • Total Time: 30 mins
  • Yield: 4 servings
  • Category: Snack
  • Cuisine: Polish
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Description

Poland’s colorful and delicioius street food!

Ingredients

  • 1 loaf French bread
  • Ham, sliced thin (enough to cover the bread)
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 16 ounces mushrooms, sliced
  • 3 cups cheese, grated
  • Ketchup
  • Garlic sauce (optional)

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 300 F
  2. Slice the bread lengthwise and also crosswise, making 4 zapiekanka crusts
  3. Add a thin layer of ham or other protein on top of the bread
  4. Add mushrooms and butter to a pan and cook over medium high heat until lightly browned, stirring frequently
  5. Top Zapiekanka with mushrooms and sprinkle with cheese
  6. Bake about 10 minutes, until cheese melts and bread is just beginning to brown around the edges
  7. Top with a drizze ketchup and garlic sauce

Notes

If you ketchup or other sauce doesn’t have a squirt top, add some to a sandwich bag and snip one corner, you now have a bag for piping your sauce

 

Easy Dauphinoise Potatoes

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Rather than share a Polish recipe today, I’m sharing one I first heard of when we lived in Poland, easy Dauphinoise Potatoes. Living in Poznan exposed us to many things European, and for native English speakers, the easiest to take in are things from Britian. Our Polish cable televsion brought us BBC Europe in our channel lineup. Watching the UK version of Come Dine with Me was the highlight of many an evening at home.

Easy Dauphinoise Potatoes add an elegant touch to any meal!

If you’re not familiar with the program, it consists of four folks, who take turns hosting the other three participants in their home for a dinner party. The three guests score their hosts, and after the final meal, the overall winner is presented with one thousand pounds! We see highligths of them cooking in the kitchen, of the dinner conversation, and interviews in between, where they talk about the meal the night before or the menu they’ve been given for an upcoming meal. The highlight for us is Dave Lamb, an English actor and comedian, who provides voice over commentary, and says all the snarky things that cross my mind as I’m watching and then some.

Watching the show, pointed out differences in British food and American food. There were dishes I’d never heard of, even though I lived in England for a while, way back when. Many of these novel dishes were repeated frequently, sometimes within the same episode. Dauphinoise Potatoes was a dish that appeared with great frequency. (We’ve talked about hosting a dinner party and preparing a menu that would only be the most popular items form Come Dine with Me.) At first glance, I thought Dauphinoise Potatoes are just Scalloped Potatoes or maybe Potatoes au Gratin. For me, the key difference is cooking the sliced potatoes in the cream before moving them to the baking dish with Gruyere cheese. That seems to make a big difference, that and the garlic. Yum.

As they bake in the same cream and milk in which you’ve boiled them with a clove of garlic, the potatoes meld into a thick and rich, mildly cheese casserole. We fixed them a couple of weeks ago when our friend, Mark, was visiting for the weekend. We had them the first night for dinner, and the next two mornings for breakfast. They’re very tasty with a fried egg on top.

Now I’m waiting for my next opportunity to work easy Dauphinoise Potatoes into the menu.

Smacznego!

Lois

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Dauphinoise Potatoes

  • Author: Polish Housewife
  • Prep Time: 30 mins
  • Cook Time: 45 mins
  • Total Time: 1 hour 15 mins
  • Yield: 9 servings
  • Category: Side Dish
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Description

A rich and creamy potato dish

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon butter, softened
  • 2 1/2 pounds potatoes
  • 2 1/2 cups heavy cream
  • 1 1/2 cups whole milk
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 1 teaspoon coarse salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
  • 4 ounces Gruyere cheese
  • 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
  • 1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400 F
  2. Spread butter across bottom and sides of an 8 inch square baking pan
  3. Peel potatoes and slice 1/8 inch thick
  4. Bring heavy cream, milk, and garlic to a simmer in a large saucepan or Dutch oven
  5. Add potatoes, salt, and pepper and continue to simmer, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender about 20 minutes
  6. Using a slotted spoon, transfer half the potatoes to prepared baking dish and sprinkle with half of the cheese and half of the thyme
  7. Add remaining potatoes to baking dish and pour enough cream mixture over potatoes to just cover
  8. Sprinkle with remaining cheese and thyme
  9. Place on a rimmed baking sheet to catch anything that might boil over and bake until bubbly and golden brown on top, 40 to 45 minutes
  10. Remove from oven and grate nutmeg over top just before serving

 

Czerwona Kapusta (Polish Red Cabbage)

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Not long after we arrived in Poland, Ed’s supervisor visited from Florida. I was seated next to him at dinner one night, and the meal we’d both ordered included a side of Czerwona Kapusta (Polish Red Cabbage). After tasting his, John leaned over and said, “mine is better.” To which I replied, Well then, I’d like to have your recipe. You might not picture red cabbage as a well-known dish in Florida and you’d be correct, but John’s wife grew up not far from where we were dining. They have a home there and spend a lot of time in Central Europe, so he had some credibility.
Czerwona Kapusta (Polish Red Cabbage) a colorful, sweet and sour side dish
Like so many home cooks, John wasn’t someone who used a recipe, but it did his best to put it in writing, and I’ve loved the results. The blackberry preserves refresh the color of the cooked cabbage. The sweet and sour taste is balanced by the savory warmth of the onion – very tasty, and John tells me it freezes well. It’s so popular that my mother has made it a regular feature on her Christmas Eve menu. I hope you’ll enjoy it too.
Smacznego!
Lois
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Red Cabbage

  • Author: Polish Housewife
  • Prep Time: 15 mins
  • Cook Time: 1 hour 20 mins
  • Total Time: 1 hour 35 mins
  • Yield: 8 - 10 servings
  • Category: Vegetable
  • Cuisine: Polish
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Description

A colorful, sweet and sour dish

Ingredients

  • 1 onion, diced
  • 2 tart apples, peeled, cored & diced
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 1 head red cabbage
  • 1/2 cup vinegar
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1-1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon pepper
  • 1/2 cup seedless blackberry preserves

Instructions

  1. In a large dutch oven, saute onion and apples in butter until soft
  2. Cut cabbage into quarters, remove core and outer leaves, thinly slice remaining leaves to produce a finely shredded cabbage
  3. Add cabbage, vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper to pan, cook approximately one hour, until cabbage is soft, stirring occasionally
  4. Stir in blackberry preserves, combine over heat until the preserves are melted

Notes

This makes a big batch, but it freezes well

Łazanki z Białą Kapustą (Polish Noodles and Cabbage)

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The first time we were stationed at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, Ed was training in the F-4, and I was a college student. His parents drove down from Pennsylvania to visit us. I’d been a guest in their home before, but it was the first time we’d hosted them, so we broke out of student mode long enough to give out townhouse a thorough cleaning in anticipation of their visit. Like moms everywhere, his mother had brought the fixings to cook for us the first night. One of the things she prepared was Łazanki z Białą Kapustą (Polish Noodles and Cabbage). As we were cleaning up  the kitchen after the feast she’d prepared, my mother-in-law asked how to lift up the top of the stove to clean under the burners. I had to confess that I didn’t know; it was wasn’t something I’d done in the two months we’d bene living there. Busted! To be fair, we didn’t cook a lot back then. An occasional Sunday dinner or omelettes for his classmates after a Friday night at the Officer’s Club were the extent of our meal prep.

Łazanki z Białą Kapustą (Polish Noodles and Cabbage) a comfort food side with kielbasa

Recently, Mike from PA asked if I could reconnect him with a noodle and cabbage dish his grandmother used to make. I hope Łazanki z Białą Kapustą (Polish Noodles and Cabbage) will come close to what he remembers. As with all recipes, there are as many variations as there are cooks. To me, a key trait is that the dish is generously seasoned with ground black pepper. Sometimes, my mother-in-law would add a can of sauerkraut that she’d rinsed and drained. I think it would also be delicious if you added sautéed mushrooms, and everything goes better with kielbasa. You might slice and saute the kielbasa and add it to the noodle and cabbage mixture or serve it on the side. Now that I’ve lived in Poland and gotten a feel for typical seasonings, I like to add a bay leaf an a couple of whole allspice berries.

Łazanki z Białą Kapustą (Polish Noodles and Cabbage) with kielbasa

As we enjoyed this for a quick dinner last dinner, Ed said, “you know, this would be tasty for breakfast too.” Whenever you decide to serve it, I hope you’ll enjoy Łazanki z Białą Kapustą (Polish Noodles and Cabbage).

Smacznego!

Lois

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Łazanki z Białą Kapustą (Polish Noodles and Cabbage)

  • Author: Polish Housewife
  • Prep Time: 15 mins
  • Cook Time: 30 mins
  • Total Time: 45 mins
  • Yield: 6-8 servings
  • Category: Side Dish
  • Cuisine: Polish
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Description

Full of flavor, a Polish comfort food, a delicious side dish or add sausage for a hearty main

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 2 tablespoons oil
  • 2 small onions, sliced
  • 1 head white cabbage, quartered, cored removed, and sliced thin
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2 whole allspice
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper
  • 14 ounce can sauerkraut, rinsed and drained (optional)
  • package wide noodles, prepared according to package directions

Instructions

  1. Add butter and oil to a Dutch oven over medium high heat
  2. Add sliced onions and cabbage, bay leaf and allspice, salt and pepper
  3. Cook, stirring and scrapping the bottom frequently, until the cabbage is tender (it will cook down to about 1/3 of the original volume)
  4. (Add the optional drained sauerkraut if you’re using it)
  5. Add the cooked (and drained) noodles, toss to combine

Notes

Variations: add sliced kielbasa or serve kielbasa on the side
Add sautéed sliced mushrooms

 

Zupa z Kopru Włoskiego – Fennel Soup

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Zupa z Kopru Wloskiego – Fennel Soup was headlining on our menu when we hosted friends from the church where I work for a meal recently. We had Sue (who shared her relish recipe with us), Bill (one of our beloved volunteer receptionists), and Mila and her husband Jan. Mila is a Russian-Swedish artist, whose Icons in Transformation exhibit is at the church for the next few months. Jan is originally from Bydgoszcz, Poland, He grew up in Sweden, but he was raised by a Polish mother, so I suspected that soup would be a most welcome first course.

Zupa z Kopru Wloskiego - Fennel Soup

We were serving salmon, and fennel was one of the many complimentary flavor listed in The Flavor Bible (affiliate link). Fennel soup it was! Given its appearance and the fact that Fennel or Koper Wloski is from the Mediterranean, it makes sense the Polish name translates as Italian Dill.

Fennel isn’t something that I ate growing up. I first tasted it a few years ago when we visited Ireland. I had a quiche with fennel in a wonderful wine bar, that was owned by a Polish woman. I’ve found a few ways to use it since that first experience. The Zupa z Kopru Wloskiego – Fennel Soup is definitely a do over. It was perfect to proceed the salmon. The flavor was harmonious without being overpowering. I’d love to hear about the ways you use fennel.

Smacznego!

Lois

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Zupa z Kopru Włoskiego – Fennel Soup

  • Author: Polish Housewife
  • Prep Time: 15 mins
  • Cook Time: 50 mins
  • Total Time: 1 hour 5 mins
  • Yield: 8
  • Category: Soup
  • Cuisine: Polish
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Description

Layers of flavor in a delicious cream soup

Ingredients

  • 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
  • 2 whole star anise
  • 2 cardamom pods, crushed
  • 1 whole clove
  • 1/4 cup canola oil
  • 4 large bulbs fennel, trimmed and roughly chopped (I used the stalks too)
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 1 cup dry white wine
  • 6 cups chicken stock
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • salt and pepper, to taste
  • chives for garnish

Instructions

  1. Add the coriander sees, star anise, cardamom pods, clove, and oil to a Dutch oven
  2. Saute over medium high heat for a few minutes until the seeds begin to pop
  3. Transfer the spices to a piece of cheese cloth and bundle and tie into a tight package (or put the spices in a tea infuser that encases the tea on all sides)
  4. Add the fennel and onion to the pan and cook until golden, about 25 minutes
  5. Add the wine and cook until reduced by half
  6. Add the spice package and stock, bring to a boil
  7. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer, stirring occasionally
  8. When the vegetable are tender, discard the spice package, and puree the soup with an immersion blender or working in batches in a blender
  9. Return the soup to the pan, add cream and season
  10. Gently simmer for a few minutes
  11. Serve sprinkled with chopped chives

Notes

You might include a peeled and cored, sliced apple to the vegetables as they’re cooking.
Candied nuts would also make a nice garnish.

 

Placki Ziemniaczane (Potato Pancakes)

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Polska piątek (Polish Friday) #4
Placki Ziemniaczane, delicious Polish potato pancakes
If you enjoy these two recipes, how about sharing the love and passing this post along to your friends?

I was so thrilled to get my copy of Nela’s Cookbook .  It’s a cookbook written by Nela Rubinstein, wife of famed Polish American pianist Arthur Rubinstein. Her recipes are Polish, Lithuanian, and American. If you’d like to check it out, My Amazon affiliate link is above. I love it.  The cookbook, published in 1983, has drawings illustrating techniques, and it’s written as if it were a food blog.  Every recipe is preceded by a little story; Nela might talk about the source of the recipe, what she serves with it, or some family chuckle related to the dish.

Nela makes her potato pancakes a little differently than other recipes I’ve seen.  She uses no flour – preferring instead to use the potato starch that has drained from the grated potatoes. It was the first recipe I tried from the cookbook.

I made two different recipes – Nela’s and one found on All Recipes.  Before I give you more details, let me say how thrilled I am to have mastered potato pancakes.  I’ve been trying to do this for years, only to end up with the a batter that dissolves in the oil.  Where did I get the crazy idea that I was supposed to use mashed potatoes?  No matter what I added – flour, egg or how I handled the dough – disaster.  Not any more.

First, I made the recipe that uses flour.  Grating the potatoes was time consuming; other than that, it was very easy.

Which method did we prefer?

Now, we make the basic recipe, the first one below. I do use Nela’s suggestion of grating the potatoes and onion with my food processor. To me using flour rather than relying on collecting the potato starch, just makes sense, it’s faster and easier, and a sure thing. The mixture was just a little more cohesive that the one with only potato starch. If I needed to make the pancakes gluten free, it’s nice to have that option, but it’s an option, I’ll save for special GF occasions. I include it here in case you need GF.

You’ll notice in the video that the mixure does get watery as it sits. Just give it a stir and keep on cooking. In this case it also oxidized a bit, turning darker because we took the time to set up the camera, but the color corrected itself as the pancakes cooked. You’ll also see in the video that I turn the pancakes around and over. Before flipping them, I rotate them halfway in the pan because the part in the center always browns faster than the outside edge of the pan.

Can you spot the cameo appearance of by Ellie, one of our two new dogs? She and Rigby joined our household a couple of months ago from Bichon FurKids Rescue.

Finally, let’s get around to serving these crisp and tender creations.   We love potato pancakes topped with Gulasz or Pork Goulash.  Polish friends have told me they like to eat them with sugar and cinnamon, or maybe sour cream.   How about sour cream and a dollop of caviar?  The possibilities are mouth watering.  Oh yeah, plain is really good too.

Smacznego!

Lois

(Amazon pays me a few cents for purchases via these links)
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Placki Ziemniaczane (Potato Pancakes)

★★★★★ 4.2 from 5 reviews
  • Prep Time: 10 mins
  • Cook Time: 15 mins
  • Total Time: 25 mins
  • Yield: 9
  • Cuisine: Polish
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Description

A potato pancake recipe that uses flour to thicken

Ingredients

  • 3 potatoes (1.5 pounds)
  • 1 small onion
  • 1 small egg
  • 2 tablespoons flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • canola oil for frying

Instructions

  1. Peel potatoes and grate on the fine side of the grater
  2. Grate onion
  3. Drain potatoes and onion
  4. In a bowl, beat egg, stirring in flour, salt, and pepper until smooth
  5. Add drained potatoes and onion, stirring until well combined
  6. Heat 1/4 inch oil in frying pan over medium high heat
  7. Add potato batter, 1/4 cup at a time
  8. Using the back of a spoon, spread the batter until the pancake is about 1/2 inch thick, I was able to make 3 at a time
  9. Cook 2 to 3 minutes on each side, my frying pan is larger than the largest burner, so I also rotated them half way through each side to keep the middle from cooking and the outside edge from not getting dark enough
  10. Drain on paper towels.

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Placki Ziemniaczane (Potato Pancakes)

★★★★★ 4.2 from 5 reviews
  • Author: Nela
  • Prep Time: 10 mins
  • Cook Time: 15 mins
  • Total Time: 25 mins
  • Yield: 9
  • Cuisine: Polish
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Description

A potato pancake thickened with potato starch

Ingredients

  • 3 potatoes (1.5 pounds)
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1 tablespoon onion
  • 1 small egg
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • lard for frying

Instructions

  1. Peel and dice the potatoes
  2. Add water to blender or food processor with a steel blade attachment, process the potato and onion in two batches
  3. Using the same water for both batches, process in bursts, so the potatoes are grated finely, but not liquefied
  4. Drain the potato mixture; reserving the water, let the water sit for just a minute, the potato starch will settle to the bottom
  5. Pour off the liquid, being careful to leave the starch in the bowl
  6. Add egg, salt, and potato onion mixture to the starch and combine
  7. Heat lard over medium high heat, drop batter 1/4 cup at a time into hot lard, using the back of the spoon to spread out the batter until pancakes are 1/2 inch thick
  8. Cook until brown on both sides
  9. Drain on paper towels

 

Green Beans Fasolka Szparagowa A La Polonaise

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Without going into a long history lesson, mainly because I’m not qualified to teach it, during the 1800s, a time when Poland was partitioned (divided up and taken over by neighboring countries), many of the Polish elite took residence in France, musician Frederic Chopin and poet Adam Mickiewicz to name just two. This influx of Polish nationals may be how the French became familiar with dishes such as Fasolka Szparagowa A La Polonaise, and how they came to label anything topped with butter and breadcrumbs as A La Polonaise, or in the Polish manner or Polish style. The Poles, they might call this fasolka szparogowa z bulka tarta, green beans with breadcrumbs.

Fasolka Szpargowa A La Polonaise

You’re not limitted to green beans if you have the urge to go A La Polonaise with butter and breadcrumbs. Try this technique on chicken, fish, cauliflower, asparagus, or other vegetables. Cook the vegetables in salted water, seved chilled or warm, topping with bread crumbs that have been browned in a generous amount of butter. You may also choose to add chopped hard boiled egg and herbs such as parsley or dill.

Enjoy Fasolka Szparagowa A La Polonaise. If you find yourself engaging in every mother’s favorite pastime, trying to get your kids to eat more vegetables, butter and bread crumbs couldn’t hurt, right?

Smacznego!

Lois

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Fasolka Szparagowa (Green Beans) A La Polonaise

★★★★★ 4.8 from 4 reviews
  • Prep Time: 20 mins
  • Cook Time: 20 mins
  • Total Time: 40 mins
  • Yield: serves 4 - 6
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Ingredients

  • 1 pound green beans
  • salt
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter
  • 3 tablespoons bread crumbs
  • 3 tablespoons finely chopped dill
  • pepper

Instructions

  1. Trim both ends of the green beans
  2. Heat a large pot of boiling salted water
  3. Add the beans to the boiling water, return to a boil, and simmer
  4. Cook the beans for 10 – 20 minutes (they should be al dente, firm but not crunchy)
  5. Remove from heat and drain
  6. Melt butter, when it begins to bubble, add the bread crumbs
  7. Stir and turn the mixture until golden brown
  8. Remove from heat
  9. Add beans to a serving dish and toss with butter and bread crumbs, top with dill
  10. Season as needed with salt and pepper

 

Ogórkowa (Polish Sour Pickle Soup)

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When I first made ogórki kiszone (cucumber preserved in brine), my friend, Chris who writes Kielbasa Stories, suggested that I try making Ogórkowa, a well known soup made with these natural Polish pickles. The thought of a pickle soup seemed unusual to me, but no more unusual that horseradish soup or mustard soup, both of which are now part of my soup lineup.

Ogórkowa (Polish Sour Pickle Soup)

I’ve read the recipe for Ogórkowa in a Polish cookbook in English, From a Polish Country Kitchen, which you can find via my affiliate link, and also on Allrecipes Polska. This is a combination of the two. The American version has you dicing vegetables and them blitzing them, but not until completely smooth. The Polish version, which I’ve gone with in the instructions, has you grating the cooked vegetables. I have to say, I saw the grater used so often, in so many way, in Polish kitchens. It was sometimes used in ways that wouldn’t have occurred to me. Need breadcrumbs for a recipe? Just grab last night’s baguette and grate it!

Ogórkowa is complex soup with many layers of flavor. As you can see from the ingredient list, it’s so much more than just pickles.

Smacznego!

Lois

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Ogórkowa (Polish Sour Pickle Soup)

Ogórkowa (Polish Sour Pickle Souo)

★★★★★ 5 from 1 reviews
  • Author: Polish Housewife
  • Prep Time: 25 mins
  • Cook Time: 60 mins
  • Total Time: 1 hour 25 mins
  • Yield: 6-8 servings
  • Category: Soup
  • Cuisine: Polish
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Ingredients

  • Pork or chicken bones
  • 1 leek, the white and light green parts, trimmed and rinsed
  • 2 carrots, trimmed and peeled
  • 1 parsnip, trimmed, and peeled
  • 1 stalk celery, trimmed
  • 1 onion, trimmed and outer layer removed
  • 3 allspice (whole)
  • 1 quart (900 ml) sour pickles
  • 4 cloves garlic, finely minced
  • 3 large potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 1 tablespoon dried marjoram
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • 1/4 cup heavy cream
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

Instructions

  1. Add the bones, leek, carrots, parsnip, celery, onion and allspice to a large pot
  2. Add 6 to 8 cups of water, or use broth, (chicken or vegetable) if you don’t have soup bones in hand
  3. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 40 minutes
  4. While this is cooking , removed the pickles, reserving their liquid, grate the pickles and simmer in a small amount of water for 20 minutes, drain
  5. Add the garlic and potatoes to the soup and cook about 15 minutes, until the potatoes are tender
  6. Remove the bones, leek, carrots, parsnip, onion, and allspice from the soup
  7. Grate the carrots, parsnip, and celery, and return to the soup
  8. Season with marjoram, salt and pepper
  9. Add the grated pickles and juice to the soup
  10. Just before serving, stir in the heavy cream and chopped dill

 

 

 

Ogórki Kiszone (Polish Pickles)

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I’ve gone all American on you with the title of this post, Polish Pickles. One lesson I learned from my Polish friends was that pickles are made with vinegar. The preferred method of creating sour little cucumbers in Poland is to preserve them in brine, so these are more correctly referred to a preserved cucumbers rather than pickled cucumbers. If this differs from your family’s English definition of Ogórki Kiszone, I’ll have to refer you to my group of experts in Poznan. I’m just repeating what I’ve been told.

Ogórki Kiszone are much loved, and I was fortunate to be given jars of brine preserved cukes twice. The first jar came from my friend Elzbieta, her mother makes them every year. The second came from a young man, an engineering student at our Poznan’s Politechnika University, and a waiter at our local TGI Fridays. We would chat at Fridays, and occasionally run into each other at a party in our neighborhood. At some point, we got on the subject of Ogórki Kiszone, and the next time I saw him, he brought me a jar of his mother’s preserved cucumbers. Apparently, he had multiple jars stashed in his dorm room. I returned the favor at our next meeting with samples of a few things I’ve been whipping up in the kitchen, almond cookies, and his favorite Bailey’s pinwheels.

One of the things I loved about Polish supermarkets (even little markets) was the pack of veggies they’d put together for soup making and in the summer, for your Ogórki Kiszone. I bought one of these when I tried my hand at this Polish staple in Poznan. It included multiple cloves of garlic, a flowering stem of dill, a piece of horseradish root, and leaves. My research tells me that any of the following leaves can be used: cherry, black currant, raspberry, oak, grape, horseradish, mustard. The leaves contain tannin and are supposed to help the cucumbers stay crisp during the fermentation process. That’s what’s happening to produce the sour taste, lacto-fermentation.

Laco-fermentation doesn’t involve dairy. Lacto refers to lactic acid. All fruits and vegetables have beneficial bacteria such as Lactobacillus on the surface. In an oxygen-free environment, these bacteria convert sugars into lactic acid, which inhibits harmful bacteria and acts as a preservative. (This is why you want your cucumbers completely submerged, so they’re in an oxygen-free environment.) It’s also what gives fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kambucha, or sourdough bread their characteristic sour flavor.

Below you’ll find the basic process for making one quart of Ogórki Kiszone. Other than the cucumbers and salt, you should feel free to adjust, add to (maybe a bit of chili pepper), or omit on the ingredient list and multiply based on the number of quart jars you’d like to make.

Smacznego!

Lois

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Ogorki Kiszone (Polish Pickles)

★★★★★ 4.7 from 3 reviews
  • Author: Polish Housewife
  • Yield: 1 quart
  • Cuisine: Polish
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Description

Cucumbers, naturally fermented in a flavorful brine

Ingredients

  • wide mouth 1 quart jar
  • 8 to 10 pickling cucumbers (4-6 inches long), washed and dried
  • 2 tablespoons pickling salt or sea salt
  • 1 quart water
  • 2 teaspoons mustard seeds
  • 2 cloves peeled garlic
  • 1 stem dill, preferably flowering
  • fresh horseradish root, about 1 inch long
  • bay leaf
  • Cherry, grape, blackcurrant, or oak leaf

Instructions

  1. Tightly pack the cucumbers into the sterile jar, you want to squeeze them in, so they’ll stay submerged and not float to the top of the liquid
  2. Add the salt to the water and bring to a boil
  3. Add the mustard seeds, garlic, dill (fold to fit), horseradish, bay leaf, and other leaf if you have one
  4. Fill the jar with the salt water to within 1/4 from the top, all of your ingredients should be covered
  5. Loosely cap the jar with a sterile lid, the lid must be loose to allow the gases produced during fermentation to escape, some brine may seep out, so store where this won’t be a problem
  6. As it ferments, the brine will become cloudy
  7. Depending on your taste, the cucumbers will be ready to eat in 1 to 3 weeks
  8. Fermentation will end after 5-6 weeks, if you have any left at this point, the lids should be tightened to prevent spoilage

 

Sauerkraut Relish Recipe

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While I’m convalescing after surgery, I’ve asked my friend, Sue, to share her recipe for Sauerkraut Relish and write a guest post. We were lucky enough to attend the cookout Sue mentions and to be sent home with some of the leftovers! The beautiful color was the first thing to strike me about this relish, and the flavor and texture were also awesome! Thanks, Sue, for sharing and helping me out! Now, I’ll hand it over to Sue:

sauerkraut relish

My foodie brother introduced me to sauerkraut relish (or marinated sauerkraut), when he was in his brat phase. (That’s “brat” as in “bratwurst” … the other kind of brat phase was when he was much younger.) When I was invited recently to a cookout with the theme of “cookout classics,” I decided to bring sauerkraut relish to accompany the hotdogs. Rather than get my brother’s recipe, I pulled out my cookbooks that are collections of recipes from mid-last-century from the midwest. The sauerkraut relish had reminded me of my father’s cousin’s family recipe for shoe peg corn salad, as well as my Aunt Marion’s bean salad, so I also went through my recipe box. There seems to be a genre of mid-century midwestern marinated vegetable salads that all have similar themes and ingredients. The main hallmark seems to be a dressing composed of vinegar and sugar (ranging from equal parts to a preponderance of sugar), and the vegetables added to the main ingredient include onion, celery, and bell pepper (with some also calling for pimiento, jalapeño pepper, and/or grated carrot).

So, I sort of combined recipes and picked what sounded good. Since I had roasted a red pepper for an appetizer for the cookout, I opted not to use the pimiento, and I used a combination of yellow and orange bell peppers. I added a jalapeño pepper but wasn’t sure of the guests’ heat tolerance so removed the seeds and membranes. And I didn’t measure, so quantities are approximate.

My brother served the sauerkraut relish as a hot dog condiment, but the guests at the cookout treated it as a side dish. Which is, of course, perfectly OK.

sauerkraut relish

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Sauerkraut Relish

★★★★ 4 from 1 reviews
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Description

As a side or a topping, this sauerkraut relish adds terrific flavor, texture, and color!

Ingredients

  • One 32-oz jar sauerkraut
  • Several ribs of celery
  • One-half red onion
  • One bell pepper
  • One large jalapeño
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup vinegar
  • 1/3 cup oil
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Drain the sauerkraut well
  2. I also squeezed it over the colander till fairly dry
  3. Dice the celery, onion, and bell pepper
  4. Remove the seeds and membranes from the jalapeño and dice
  5. In a small saucepan over low heat, combine the sugar and vinegar and stir till dissolved
  6. Let cool
  7. Add to the vegetable mixture with the oil and salt and pepper to taste

Notes

Enjoy as a condiment or side dish